jeudi 28 février 2013

The value of Grit by Joe Abercrombie



For those who don't know Joe Abercrombie well let me say this to you; in what world are you living in? I'm addressing this question to the fans of George R.R Martin in particular, because if you're a fan of him, you should know the work of Joe Abercrombie and Daniel Abraham. Our dear mister Abercrombie is the author of the excellent The First Law series and more recently Red Country. You could say he's the illegitimate child of the author of the A Song of Fire and Ice series as a writer, why do I say that? Because he specialize in gritty, violent and raw stories, a style he defend with great passion in this great article he posted a few days ago.

What are your thoughts on gritty fantasy? Are you annoyed, hate it or are you one of those people who wish there was no other way of writing fantasy?

A title and release date for book two of the Stormlight Archive


For the fans of Brandon Sanderson out there, big news today. We finally have the title for the second opus of the Stormlight Archive and even a release date.



The new book which will be called Words of Radiance and is set to be release in November 2013. It's still almost a year of wait and we all know how dreadful that can be, hopefully there won't be any set-backs and we will have the book in our hands to enjoy before Christmas. Now, knowing Brandon Sanderson, I wouldn't put too much hope on that date. 

Mr. Sanderson did quite well with the first book to present an incredible, original and exciting world and most of all a great story. The whole series will comprise 10 volumes and we all know that every project as big as this one is bound to slow down and become a bit stale. Will the author be able to prevent his story to become a victim of it's own ambition? I hope so, and if anybody can do it, it's him.

Here's a few words from Sanderson about the process of making the titles of the books and how the series will be shaped:


''One of my goals for the Stormlight Archive, which you may have heard me discuss, is to focus each book on a specific character through a series of flashbacks. In a large series like this (the Stormlight Archive is two five-book sequences), it can be difficult to give each volume its own identity. By devoting a sequence of flashbacks in each book to a specific character, I can better separate the volumes in my mind—and therefore make them more distinctive to readers.''

[...]

"I don’t always think out book titles with marketing in mind, and a title isn’t set until the book is finished. In this case, once I mentioned the prospective title to my editor, he grinned and said, “Uh, are you sure you want to name a very long, very thick fantasy book The Book of Endless Pages?"

So here you go, we can now start to wait impatiently for the release. I will try to drown myself in various books and alcohol to be able to cope with the long wait. Of course, there's a lot coming from Sanderson's direction in the next year, so it won't be too hard on us poor mortal readers.
If any of you want to have a little peak at the author at work on book two, there's a few videos of him in the writing process. It's a nice little experience, if you have the time, watch the four videos.

A new novel from Brandon Sanderson or how to make me giddy



Well well well, here I am, wandering the ''interwebs'' looking, minding my own business as usual, surfing calmly through the many threads of this big and almost infinite web, when I fell on this great pieces of news about Brandon Sanderson. It's no secret, I love Sanderson's work, it's brilliant, riveting and very ambitious. But, I haven't been a fan for a very long time though, so this might be old news for some people out there.

This spring, more precisely on May 14th, we will be blessed with his first novel for a young adult audience. It will be titled '' The Rithmatist'' and it is bound to be a great read, here's a little excerpt; http://www.tor.com/stories/2013/01/the-rithmatist-excerpt

Now, who's excited about this? You can be sure that I am excited as a dog who's going on a walk, as I'm always when a new book by Brandon Sanderson is announced. I will be talking about another news about him later today, or tomorrow morning, stay tune fans of Sanderson, because there's been a lot of announcement coming from him lately.

A great news from Tor publishing


Big news from Tor for the Anne McAffrey fan's out there today. This summer a big tribute to the writer an her fantastic work will be published. I'm not a personally a fan, but I did read her work a few times and she's a tremendous writer. Her world was incredible and the depth of it is something to be remembered. She was one of the major influences out there for some of the most brilliant writers of our present days and we sadly lost this great talent in 2011.

This book called Dragonwriter: A Tribute to Anne McCaffrey and Pern will feature the talent of many authors such as Elizabeth Moon, David Brin, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Richard Woods, Jody Lynn Nye, Angelina Adams in the form of various essays about the wealth of her creation and the writer herself. Also the cover will be done by Michael Whelan, now what more can you ask for this great retrospective.


mardi 26 février 2013

I have no idea where I'm going or this is a new blog


Well, this is it folks, my introduction. My name is Micaël Martel and this is my attempt at starting a blog on fantasy, youth literature and comic books. Why? Because I was newly hired by a library and I thought I would start doing some blogging about this little thing called fantasy. Merely critics and news about the genre, opinions and maybe eventually some theorization and articles. I don't know yet, like I said this is an experiment for me and maybe people will end up hating it, or will simply not follow me. I hope you will embark with me on this adventure and possibly enjoy it. Now there will be no other post tonight as this is only an introduction. But I am planning on doing a little review on the Abarat series by Clive Barker and it will come shortly as I am presently reading the second book.

Now, if you are curious about me well let me say this about myself, I'm french-canadian, so my english will probably suck at one point or another. I hope you will forgive me for this, as this is as much an attempt to get involve in the beautiful fantasy community as a chance to better myself in this fine language that is English. You might have observe that my template for the blog is crude and boring, and I will say this, I don't know a thing about web design and such things. If there is someone out there with a kind soul who would be ready to give me a kickass blog look for free, well go ahead. In the meantime, just endure the pain of looking at it like I do. 

I'm excited about starting this, I hope you will enjoy reading my blog and that more and more reader will come to this website. See you soon with a review of Abarat.